It’s another Red October right here in Philadelphia — and for America’s oldest sport’s franchise operating right here for an uninterrupted one-hundred and forty-two years in our beloved city — it was a chance to make more exhilarating baseball history for all of us to savor. Seventeen years ago this week was a postseason highlight that didn’t just electrify Citizen’s Bank Park in South Philadelphia — it helped to propel the 2008 Phillies to a championship celebration in this City not seen for a quarter century.
Occasionally — being very historic — is not always a good thing. A shining example of that are our beloved Phillies. No professional sports franchise in our country has operated continuously for longer in the United States. When sporting goods manufacturer Al Reach and lawyer John Rogers were able to secure a National League expansion franchise for the City of Philadelphia in 1883 — no one could have foreseen how they would endure in the city for almost 150 years. Their humble beginnings at Recreation Park — once the station of Union cavalry outpost in Philadelphia just twenty years earlier — provided the home crowd with a winning percentage of .173.
To this day it’s the worst in franchise history — which in and of itself is a feat considering that it would take a mere nearly one hundred years to prevail in a World Series, 32 years to win the NL Pennant to play in one, and thirty-five more years to get back there.
But the Phillies have had incredible moments as well. The Whiz Kids assembled a post World War II thrilling post-season run in 1950, Tug McGraw’s classic arms in the air that signaling a 1980 World Championship in South Philadelphia, and NL Championship runs all the way to the World Series in 1983. 1993, and 2022.
The 2008 Phillies post-season run was as magical as any of that — and more.
The 2008 Phillies had finished the season at a record of 92–70 — first place in the NL East — even scoring sixty runs over five games in late May in Colorado featuring with a team that had acquired young talent such as outfielder Shane Victorino, Shortstop Jimmy Rollins first-baseman Ryan Howard, 2nd baseman Chase Utley, and pitcher Cole Hamels.
In the NLDS — the Phillies would face the Milwaukee Brewers and Cy Young winner CC Sabathia. In the bottom of the second inning in South Philadelphia — would be the moment that helped to propel the Phillies on a run that would end with a walk an October parade down Broad Street.
This month in 2008— (in the bottom of the second inning of Game 2) of the NLDS — the Phillies and Brewers were locked at one apiece. With the bases loaded — Phillies Shane Victorino would then hit a Grand Slam — the first in postseason Phillies history to give the Phillies a 5–1 lead. The Phillies would go on to win the series three games to one.
The Phillies would then go on to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to one in the NLCS, and then the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 World Series. The sea of red that lined the streets of the parade route from Market Street to South Philadelphia didn’t just celebrate the first franchise championship in twenty-eight years, but also Philadelphia’s first major sport’s championship in twenty-five years. The Philadelphia Phillies also broke the Curse of Billy Penn — whose legend began when a “gentlemen’s agreement” was broken in 1985 with the construction of One Liberty Place — the first building in Philadelphia constructed higher than William Penn Statue’s hat brim tip atop City Hall.
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